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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
Sipe says that the reason so many boys are targets of priest abuse is because priests have the closest contact with boys and young men in seminaries and in parishes where, until recently, girls were not allowed to be altar servers. Sipe calls the priesthood a "homosocial culture," not unlike a men's prison. "Think what kind of sex is available to men in prison. Just because prisoners are committing homosexual acts doesn't mean they are all homosexuals. It's what's available to them," Sipe says. "Boys and men are more available to priests socially."
Sipe is also quick to defend gay priests, saying that his research shows one-third of priests are gay, but just as many remain true to their vows of celibacy as heterosexual priests -- about 50 percent. "Gay priests are getting a terribly bad rap," Sipe says. And, like Schoener, he is angered by the church's approach. "Blaming gay priests is bullshit. This anti-gay spirit is so unfounded. I call it the 'sexual holocaust.' The church's attitude is that if you can find a scapegoat, you can persecute them and then you'll eliminate the problem. If you got rid of homosexual-oriented priests, that would mean you would eliminate one-third of priests and bishops," he says. "There have always been homosexual bishops, priests and popes."
Berlin also rejects the notion that a homosexual priest is any more likely to become a pedophile than a heterosexual one. "There's no evidence whatsoever that a man who is homosexual is any more a risk to a young boy than would be a heterosexual man to a young girl," he says.
Those priests who have molested teenage boys may be ephebophiles, Berlin says, those who tend to be attracted to adolescents. But while he acknowledges that some cases of priest abuse involve homosexual priests who became sexually involved with teenage boys, he says there was not enough information to determine whether the cases coming to light now are homosexual men or ephebophiles. Celibacy, he says, can aggravate a preexisting sexual problem, but the vow doesn't create sexual abusers.
Berlin does allow for gray areas. "Certainly a priest who is homosexual and feeling lonely and lacking intimacy can begin to feel drawn towards an older adolescent he is working closely with," he says.
But even some who do believe that gay priests are the source of the scandal believe that the responsibility still rests largely with the church itself. "They are not pedophiles. They are psychosexually arrested homosexual priests," insisted the Rev. Robert Nugent, who spent 27 years ministering to gays and lesbians, including gay priests, before the Vatican banned his ministry in 1999. He now is a parish priest in Baltimore.
"They have not come to grips or an understanding or integration of their homosexual identity. In a celibate culture, they don't have to," he says. Nugent believes the celibacy requirement for priests, along with the church's teaching that gays are "disordered" and that homosexual behavior is "deviant," has created an atmosphere where priests are too ashamed to deal with their homosexuality. As a result, gay priests repress their sexual feelings, never developing their sexuality until it manifests in inappropriate behavior with young males. "The only ones they can relate to on a sexual level are males younger than them," Nugent said. "Psychosexually these priests are 14, 15 years old."
Although parishioners are calling for stricter screening and testing, Nugent, along with other priests, is worried that targeting gays would only further entrench the culture of secrecy in the priesthood. "There is no absolute way of screening out a homosexual candidate," Nugent said. "The danger, of course, is that they will hide and try to pass themselves off as a heterosexual in order to get into the seminary. And that's a recipe for disaster because sooner or later they're going to have to deal with it. Some of the cases now probably fit that similar profile."
